Louder Than Words
by Zoe Alice Latimer
Summary: "HE FOUND YOU." In Journey's End, Martha's three words send Rose's thoughts reeling through time. One-shot, ends with 10.5/Rose.


Even in the dark vault of the Crucible, Rose felt glimmers of hope. She could tell that Martha's mission was killing her, but she was going through with it.

"'Cause there's more than that," Martha was saying from Osterhagen Station One. Now, I reckon the Daleks need these twenty-seven planets for something, but what if it becomes twenty-six? What happens then? Daleks? Would you risk it?"

"She's good!" Rose said, impressed, before she could stop herself.

"Who's that?" Martha asked, startled.

"My name's Rose. Rose Tyler."

Martha's breath seemed to get knocked out of her. "He found you."

Rose shot a look at the Doctor and found him looking at her. _She knew my name, _Rose realized. _She knew he was trying to find me._

He had looked for her?

_{{"I don't mean to be rude or anything, but who exactly are you?" Rose asks the older woman who might once have been quite pretty. _

"_Sarah Jane Smith. I used to travel with the Doctor."_

_First Rose feels jealousy, and like a wounded animal she wants to bite. "Oh! Well, he's never mentioned you."_

_The Doctor tries to intervene and save himself some pain. "Oh, I must've done! Sarah Jane! Mention her all the time."_

_Rose pretends to think about it. "Hold on… sorry… never."_

"_What, not even once?" Sarah Jane sounds annoyed but looks horrified. "He didn't mention me once?"}}_

Maybe the Doctor hadn't looked, only wished. But he had kept her alive through memory. He might not have told stories about Rose Tyler, but he had mentioned her name. That's all that mattered.

_{{He tries to evade her question about how many people he's shown the stars. "Does it matter?"_

_Her voice trembles. "Yeah, it does if I'm just the latest in a long line."}}_

The scariest thought in "Pete's World" was that all of it had meant nothing to him in the end. It meant everything to her.

_{{"Now this is really seeing the future. You just leave us behind. Is that what you're going to do to me?"_

"_No. Not to you," he cuts in, hurt._

"_But Sarah Jane… You were that close to her once, and now… __**you never even mention her.**__ Why not?"_

"_I don't age. I regenerate. But humans decay. You wither and you die.__Imagine watching that happen to someone who you—"}}_

He had left her behind, not on purpose, and burned up a sun to say goodbye. Both times, he'd refused to say it. But his actions spoke louder than his words, and Martha's three words made Rose feel better, stronger.

So, desperately, she clutched them to her when the Doctor betrayed her again.

They hadn't even had a day together when he left her on that hateful beach—_that same beach—_because he truly believed that this other Doctor needed Rose more than he did. Did he even care what _Rose_ wanted?

_But I kissed him. He's not even the Doctor, but I—_ Her face burned. _Does that make me shallow? Am I?_

_{{"You can spend the rest of your life with me."_

_His face is blurry through the unshed tears in Rose's eyes._

"_But I can't spend the rest of mine with you. I have to live on. Alone. That's the curse of the Time Lords."}}_

The new Doctor took Rose's hand as the TARDIS she loved disappeared forever. Rose slid her thumb over his wrist, where his pulse set her heart beating faster. They looked into each other's eyes.

_{{The Doctor stares at her intensely, as if willing her to understand.}}_

She did now.

"I'm not ready to kiss you again," she said honestly, but she left her fingers in his. "I'm not ready to give you everything I am. Not yet. But I'm ready to trust you." Her chest heaved as she struggled for control.

"I said I'd spend my life with you," he replied evenly. His brown eyes were just as intense as her Doctor's. "I _will_ prove it."

_{{"It doesn't need saying."}}_

"Actions speak louder than words, or so they say," Rose murmured. "But that doesn't mean you can't say them, too." Her hand tightened. "That's one difference. The Doctor's always been noisy, but you said what I needed to hear, and you're still with me."

He smiled. "I'll say it again. I'm not afraid anymore, 'cause I only have this one life, you see."

_{{"Rose Tyler, I—"_

_And even the ghost leaves her alone.}}_

Rose stared at the empty beach. "Yes. Say it again and again and again." She smiled back. "Maybe it'll hit me by the time we're home from Norway."

_{{"He found you," Martha gasps._

_The Doctor and Rose exchange a look.}}  
><em>The human Doctor and Rose exchanged a look.

"This time, you really did," Rose said. "Find me."  
>He stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers. She reached and took them in hers, and his eyes lit with her encouragement. "No, Rose. You found me."<p>

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><p>AN: If you **review,** I'll burst into song. Promise.


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